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Dating Abuse CYP

Dating Abuse

Dating abuse is when someone who you are having a relationship with, or have had a relationship with, makes you feel scared or they have hurt you. You might have just met, or you might have been going out with each other for a while. You might be in school, college, university or working.

Dating abuse is mainly perpetrated by young men and victims are mainly young women, however it can happen in same sex relationships and to young men too.

Dating abuse is a pattern of on going behaviour that makes you feel scared or frightened and can involve:

Threats: Making threats to hurt you, threatening to commit suicide/leave, threatening to tell teachers/parents/friends about your relationship or your behaviour, threatening to tell people personal things about you/share intimate pictures of you, threatening to “out” you.

Intimidation: Making you afraid, hurting you physically, destroying property, threatening or hurting pets or children.

Using Social Status/societal expectations: Making all the decisions, saying it’s “man’s world” to control you, using music/tv to excuse name calling.

Anger or Emotional Abuse: Using emotional and psychological abuse, putting you down, name calling, humiliating you, using guilt to control you.

Peer pressure/community pressure: Using religion as an excuse, spreading rumours, writing offensive things online or otherwise, posting pictures online, making you do something you don’t want to, using popularity against you, trying to turn your friends against you.

Controlling behaviour: Wanting to know where you are all the time, checking your text messages/emails without your permission, taking away your phone, telling you what to wear, being jealous all the time.

Isolation/Exclusion: not allowing you to see your friends, you being worried if they find out you have seen your friends

Sexual Coercion: Manipulating or making threats to get sex ,refusing to use contraception, getting you drunk or drugged to have sex, uploading pornographic pictures of you, pressuring you to take pictures of yourself, being made to watch pornography, told you “should” do something sexual you don’t want to do, making you do something sexual with friends.

Minimising: Making light of abuse, not taking responsibility

Abuse is not normal and is never OK. If you are in a relationship with someone, you should feel loved, safe, respected and free to be yourself.

This is Abuse: a campaign TV advertising campaign targeting 13 to 18 year olds with a series of adverts in partnership with ‘Hollyoaks’, the ‘call it out’ campaign with MTV, and a run of radio advertisements on Kiss FM, accompanied by a website which provides support and advice, as well as moderated forums where teens can discuss the issues with their peers. http://thisisabuse.direct.gov.uk/worried-about-abuse